New Years in the Big Apple

This year for my first winter "shutdown" at work Tim and I decided to head to New York to experience the city during the holidays and to be there for New Years! We had a nice long trip and got a lot in during our trip. We stayed with Mandy at her cute Astoria apartment for part of the trip, and then we spent the last part of the trip at the Sheraton in Times Square. Anne and Mike Malone met up with us our third day into the trip, and it was nice to spend time with them and Mandy in NY and we got to share in on Mike's birthday too! It was a wonderful experience to visit Rockefeller Center and see the huge sparkling Christmas Tree (it really does sparkle)! Some other highlights were seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway and the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular Show! The solider dance they did was incredible!

We also ate like crazy, thanks mostly in part to Michelle and Wolf's amazing recommendations and to the W's restaurant, Blue Fin, with the best waffles and pancakes in town! Blue Fin is a must do breakfast place in Times Square! Ben Bensons, Macao Trading Co., and Corner Bistro are also highly recommended! Thanks Michelle and Wolf (we also hit up most of the bars you recommended on our all day pub crawl the first day we were there)!

The art we saw in NY was also a huge highlight to me. The MoMa had a special exhibition called Starry Night, with famous works by Van Gogh, and some of the same exact paintings that we saw in Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum! Tim and I felt well "cultured" (that doesn't happen too often) seeing some of his paintings twice! But, then again, we soaked up a lot of "culture" in Amsterdam! At the Met I took a small tour group on American artists and learned about Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, and Mary Cassatt. We also took a tip from my fav book, 1000 Places to See Before You Die, and hit up the Frick Museum across from Central Park. This was an incredible private collection, buzzing with art buffs, and socialites. I love seeing private collections and learning about why the collector has chosen certain pieces, and how they came to acquire the works!

New Years night we went to a intimate concert with Blonde Redhead (which Tim knows from Bumbershoot) at the Terminal 5 venue. Mike and Anne got VIP seating, while Tim, Mandy, and I stood at danced the night away. At midnight the opening act, Elvis Perkins sang Auld Lang Syne and they shot out paper white doves from the stage. Tim got a sweet new years kiss because I bought some fruit punch lip gloss especially for him and that kiss! Meanwhile, back at our empty hotel room at Times Square we had a full view of the Ball drop, and all the crazies standing outside in -20 degree windy weather. The good news is they were practicing the ball drop all week, so we saw the practice run the night before! We learned they are leaving the Ball up year round, so anyone visiting NYC will be able to see it! It was a memorable New Years, and such a fun trip!

OMG, it was FREEZING! The pic of Anne and I is us (freezing) waiting to board the ferry to Ellis Island, about 10 second later, we realized were were crazy, stepped out of line and made a bee-line to Starbucks!!